The Japanese House

Cover for The Japanese House's Something Has to Change

        Genre: Dream Pop

        Age: 24

        Est. 2012

        Label: Dirty Hit

        Monthly Listeners: 1.9 M

I first heard of Amber Bain aka The Japanese House in 2015, when she released the EP “Pools to Bathe In,” which was co-produced with two members of The 1975, Matty Healy and George Daniel. I was in love with The 1975 at the time so I was ready to consume anything and everything the band was related to. My favorite song off the EP was and is “Still” which has since been on every single sad playlist that I have made. The song is about still experiencing strong feelings for a former significant other, but having something stand in the way. Fortunately, 13-year-old me didn’t relate to the lyrics even a little, but I absolutely felt the sadness anyway— no need to even hear the lyrics to know it’s a sad song. I stuck around to listen to more music that The Japanese House released and some of my other favorites are “Cool Blue” and “Maybe You’re The Reason.” They’re much faster and more upbeat and definitely less heartbreaking than “Still” so I don’t recommend them for your sad boy hours playlists. 

Being a solo artist, Amber Bain sings all her songs, which I actually just found out while writing this post. She layers her vocals and pitches them down so I thought that it was several people singing. Specifically with “Still,” I thought that Matty Healy sang that song since they collaborated, but the collaboration was only on the production side. Also, all her songs are pitched down so that wouldn’t make sense unless he sang every one of her songs. 

To address the name, almost every time I recommend The Japanese House to someone, they are put off by the name. Despite the ‘Japanese,’ they think of k-pop—not to be confused with j-pop—and are immediately not interested. First of all, k-pop slander is not tolerated here, open your minds, people. I don’t listen to it either, though, I’m sorryyyy. Second of all, I just want to clear up the fact that the music The Japanese House makes isn’t k-pop or j-pop at all. Amber Bain is from England and her music is similar to The 1975, specifically the vocals like I said. The actual instrumentals are different. According to all her interviews, the name is based on a Japanese-style house that Kate Winslet used to own in England that Amber stayed in when she was 8. 

Although I LOVE a lot of The Japanese House’s music, I haven’t followed her as much as I would like. I literally didn’t even know she was a solo artist. I am the worst. It’s so easy to jam out to her music, though, and I love that she also has songs to be sad to. We love variety. I’m impressed that the few songs that I have listened to have been able to hold on for so long as some of my favorites not only from The Japanese House but from all my music.